The present invention relates to a fishline guide arrangement for a spinning reel, which is designed to prevent the entanglement of a fishline during fishing. The present invention also relates to an improved line roller for the arrangement.
A conventional spinning reel for fishing, as shown in FIG. 38, includes a semi-annular bail 411 mounted on the leading ends of a pair of bail support arms 403 through pivotable bail arms 405, so that the bail 411 can be reversibly positioned on a fishline winding side for winding a fishline onto a spool 417 and a fishline playing-out side for freely playing-out the fishline off the spool 417. As shown in FIG. 39, a fishline guide roller 409 is rotatably mounted on a shaft portion 407a of a line slider 407, and the line slider 407 thus equipped with the fishline guide roller 409 is fixed to one of the bail arms 405. As a result, the guide roller 409 can guide the fishline when the rotor 401 is rotated in a direction indicated by an arrow A with a manual handle 415 after the bail 405 has been positioned to the fishline winding side.
However, when the rotor 401 is rotated in the fishline winding direction A for winding the fishline onto the spool 417, the fishline 419 is likely to move in a direction (indicated by an arrow B) opposite to the winding direction A along the guide roller 409 as shown in FIG. 40. This axial movement of the fishline 419 on the guide roller 409 causes twists in the fishline 419.
As seen from FIGS. 39 and 40, the conventional guide roller 409 has a drum shaped surface, and the friction between the curved surface of the guide roller 409 and the fishline 419 is greater on the larger diameter portion of the guide roller 409 than it is on the smaller diameter portion thereof. Thus, when the fishline 419 axially moves in the direction B as shown in FIG. 40 during winding of the fishline 419, the guide roller 409 having the drum shaped surface produces twists in the fishline 419 in the same direction.
Moreover, during the casting of the conventional spinning reel, the fishline 419 is played-out off the spool 417 in a spiral manner, and such spiral delivery of the fishline 419 causes twists in the fishline 419 in the same direction. Therefore, the repetition of the playing-out and winding of the fishline 419 during fishing accumulates twists in the fishline 419, which may result in the fishline 419 becoming tangled or broken.
Finally, the conventional guide arrangement is undesirably bulky and heavy and can thereby contribute to rotor imbalance.